Everybody loves a free trial. Customers love free trials because they can test out a solution before buying it or subscribing, reducing their risk. Marketing and sales teams believe they accelerate the sales process. The free trial is a favorite marketing and sales strategy for subscription-based businesses. Yet the free trial is more complex and subtle than either […]
Technology marketing
Why Customer Success is Marketings New Best Friend (or Should Be)
Marketing and Customer Success are like two people in a canoe. Ideally, you’re both trying to get to the same place (a successful business with happy customers). The trip is much easier when you work together well. And in choppy waters, you need to communicate or you’ll end up off course or capsized. Many businesses […]
Startup Marketing through Content: A Review of Content Inc
Reading Joe Pulizzi’s new book Content Inc is a welcome shock for someone who lives in the engineering-driven, growth-hacking Silicon Valley. The book’s message: start your business by building an audience with content, before you write a line of code. Once you own the loyal audience, figure out what that community wants and build it. Wait – […]
Using Customer Data: Don’t Be Creepy
Businesses have all kinds of data about customers. You can use that data in ways that demonstrate value to your customers, or that erode customer trust or creep people out. You decide. As a previous blog described, campaigns that use customer data can help you reinforce the customer’s perception or realization of solution value. But it’s a small step from personalizing messages […]
Disrupting Digital Business: A Book Review and Marketing Perspective
The word ‘disruptive’ is thrown around a lot lately. It made Forbes’ list of the 10 most overused startup buzzwords. But there’s a good reason for that. Disruption is all around us. It’s better to acknowledge and embrace that fact (even at the risk of overusing buzzwords) than to ignore it and find yourself marginalized […]
The Customer Retention Marketing Opportunity
It’s time for marketers to give customer retention a little love. According to the State of B2B Product Marketing 2015 report by Regalix Research, customer retention marketing comes in dead last in the list of B2B marketing activities. Only about one in four B2B marketers plan for customer retention. Optimists like myself see this situation as a tremendous […]
